


I'm the First In Line (Honey I'm Still Free)

by vodkaanddebauchery



Series: Misc Tumblr Requests [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Coming Out, Humor, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pride, Public Display of Affection, Steve Rogers Wears Rainbow Suspenders, musings on Stonewall, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 05:10:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1766701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vodkaanddebauchery/pseuds/vodkaanddebauchery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s not gonna say that he’s smiling just because it’s June in New York City, and he’s walking down the street holding his boyfriend’s hand and wearing rainbow suspenders.</p><p>Written for a tumblr request:  “Steve and Bucky go to Pride. Wearing matching rainbow suspenders~”</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm the First In Line (Honey I'm Still Free)

**Author's Note:**

> Because we're both excited for Pride this year, doctor-sherloki-took requested: “Steve and Bucky go to Pride. Wearing matching rainbow suspenders~” I didn’t manage to get Bucky into the suspenders, but given how he behaves in this fic, I hope that explains why he’s not wearing them. 
> 
> Unbeta'd, so I apologize if any mistakes have slipped through.  
> Title from Take a Chance on Me by ABBA (covered brilliantly by Erasure), mostly because it contains a reference to being the first in line versus the end of the line, and also because it's cute and reminds me of these dorks.
> 
> And as always, thank you for reading. I love every single comment and kudos you leave.

It’s only when they pass a gaggle of men dressed in nothing but leather hotpants and boots does Bucky say anything, though he’s been looking a little pinched and tense ever since they left the Tower.

“Little different from our day,” he comments dryly. His arms are crossed tight over his chest, the metal one cloaked by one of Tony’s experimental hologram field devices, so the two of them are almost indistinguishable from the other young couples crowding the sidewalks. 

Steve looks around, taking in the rainbow flags and bunting hanging from the buildings. The atmosphere is like a vibrant seizure of joy. In the distance music with a a thumping beat plays, in the shifting tide of humanity heading from event to event people laugh and chatter and hoot. Motorcycles roar on the streets. Everything is colorful in the early summer sun. He’s never felt anything quite like it.  
“Very different from our day,” he agrees. 

He kept giving Bucky outs in the weeks leading up to the Pride events, and whether from denying he was uncomfortable or just from his sheer bloody-minded stubbornness, Bucky didn’t take them. “I’m not going there as Captain America, just as Steve Rogers,” he’d announced a week before, brushing his teeth. “Mngh,” Bucky replied from their bed, scarcely glancing up from his book.  
“You don’t have to come with me,” Steve said last night at dinner. Bucky shrugged, and asked for the steak sauce.  
“I’m fine with going alone,” Steve said that morning, after he’d poured them both coffee. He kissed the frown away from Bucky’s brow. “You don’t gotta,” Bucky replied, and went to shower.

Now, in the summer heat, he just can’t figure out what’s eating his fella. At first he thinks it’s crowds; still leery and gun-shy around large groups of people, Bucky’s coming back around to his former social self slow and steady, but he’s navigating around the crowds just fine. Then he thinks, for a horrible second, that Bucky’s embarrassed to be seen with him at a gay event, but that’s disproved quick enough.

Steve swings his hand open and loose at his side while they walk, and can’t stop his face from breaking out into a goofy little grin when Bucky takes it for the first time that day.

“What’s the grin for, kid?” Bucky drawls. Steve laughs. 

“Nothing,” he says. It’s a dirty fib and they both know it, but he’s not gonna say that he’s smiling just because it’s June in New York City, and he’s walking down the street holding his boyfriend’s hand and wearing rainbow suspenders.

(And, really, the joke’s on Tony there, because Steve wears a tactically-designed American flag into battle. He finds no shame in wearing the rainbow flag, and couldn’t help but feel a bit smug when Tony choked on his coffee, watching Steve walk out of the tower wearing the joke suspenders.) 

Bucky will roll his eyes and snort if Steve says any of that, so he doesn’t, content to hold his hand. 

At the intersection a steady flood of people is holding up traffic. A few blocks away, they can hear police whistles, and Bucky freezes when he sees the uniformed officers impassive behind dark sunglasses, directing traffic and people in turns. 

“They’re just doing their jobs, making sure people aren’t getting hurt,” Steve says softly, shouldering a little closer to him. Bucky’s still tense at his side.  
“What was I saying about this being a lot different from our day?” Bucky smiles tightly. He keeps walking. Steve notices he wrenches his hand away from Steve’s when they approach the police at the intersection. Eighty years ago they’d have been arrested for holding hands at this intersection, beat down and spat on, or worse.

Now, they’re barely spared second glance. A tall blond with the rainbow suspenders and a man with dark hair pulled into a short ponytail, both in jeans and t-shirts, are not the most attention-grabbing people in the crowd.

Steve puts a hand at the small of Bucky’s back when they’ve crossed the street, bracing, and feels slightly relieved when Bucky leans into him, searching out comfort through touch. It’s not long before they’re holding hands again, and the line between Bucky’s brows smooths out some.

There are food trucks and ice cream vendors, people walking around shilling cold water out of coolers at exorbitant prices closer to the rally center. Steve buys the both of them ice cream and a bottle of water, and as Bucky’s lifting the plastic bottle to take a drink the sun lights up his face like he’s a goddamn work of art, lighting his eyes up like the ocean and revealing the warm little highlights in his hair that Steve always forgets he has. 

“What,” Bucky says, swiping the back of his hand over his mouth.  
“Still the most handsome fella I’ve ever seen, is all.” Bucky’s cheeks turn a little pink when Steve smiles at him, a little sheepish at being caught in his outright admiration. “You okay?”  
“I’m fine,” Bucky says, and adds, “ _really_ ,” when Steve raises his eyebrows. “It’s...a lot to take in,” he admits. 

Even if it wasn’t for the carnival atmosphere, the signs and sequins, constant buzz of chatter and excitement peppered by upbeat music, it’d still be...maybe a bit much, he thinks. Because at the end of the day, the differences between their time and this new life they live are so stark, still have the potential to knock him off his feet even when he thinks they’re all caught up and adjusted.

When the rally begins, Steve sneaks a kiss while the crowd around them is taking in speeches. Bucky tastes of vanilla ice cream and Steve wants to chase the flavor on his tongue, pull Bucky close and keep pressing kisses to his lips, crowd be damned, but Bucky steps back with a little smile. “Later, soldier.”  
“What, you gonna make me pull rank so I can kiss you in public?”  
“I’d like to see you try, punk,” Bucky smirks, like he’s still got eight inches and eighty pounds on Steve, and hell, moments like this Steve feels like nothing’s changed between them. Before he can get too engrossed in musing on their relationship, Bucky snaps one of the suspender straps against him, pulling his attention back to the opening ceremonies just in time for the national anthem. 

Bucky waggles his eyebrows at Steve when the men’s choir onstage hits perfect notes in the final verse, the crowd erupting into cheers around them. Steve elbows him when the anthem is finished. Bucky elbows him back, trying not to grin. 

Hand in hand they walk to Stonewall, and even though people in the march are singing, chanting, the levity of before is swiftly crowded out by a somber sort of dignity. The afternoon quickens into twilight and the mood of the festivities shifts, subtle. 

There’s a candlelight gathering at the Inn, not a vigil. A reflection, a coming back to an origin point. The place is still a nightclub, there’s a bouncer at the door, but Steve respects the legacy of the place, the history. They’re both handed white candles out of nowhere and watch as the street comes alive with a warm glow bit by bit, candle lighting candle, stranger reaching out to stranger and sharing the flame. 

“Whatcha thinking?” Bucky asks, tipping his candle to light Steve’s. He’s just as beautiful soft-lit by candle as he was in the sunlight. His eyelashes are so damn long, casting soft shadows on his cheeks.  
Steve’s looking up at the building, the sign. He’s read about the Riots, pretty extensively, in fact. He remembers walking past police raids on queer bars, kept walking when they dragged out a man in a dress with a bloody nose, nothing on his mind but his own self-preservation. The surge of pride he felt reading about the Riots smothers the shame he still feels at remembering how he walked on, ignoring out of fear.  
“Wondering,” he says. “Think things would be any different if you and I had been around?” 

Bucky falls silent for several minutes in his consideration. There’s a faraway look in his eyes, the one that comes when he’s searching his memories, trying to parse things together in a way that makes sense.  
“Would you and I be the same people that we are now, if we’d both gotten through the War?” is his response. 

It’s something Steve thinks about often. “Honestly? Can’t say.” They’re not out publicly - weren’t during the War, with the exception of the Commandos (who didn’t care, what a fella did in his own tent was his own business, though Gabe and Morita offered to bust some noses if anyone had anything to say about Cap and Barnes spending too much time going over battle plans). They’re not out now, except to the Avengers. If they’d been around for that gap in-between....he doesn’t know if they’d have been out even then.  
Bucky says, soft, “Then stop playing What Ifs and be here with me.”  
“Well when you put it like that,” Steve says. Bucky takes his hand and squeezes it in the candlelight.

On their way home they’re stopped dead in their tracks by a group of kids in costumes clearly on their way out to party. That’s not so unusual, nor the costumed aspect of Pride parties, but their choice of dress is. Well. 

“Who do we gotta talk to to get you out in the field like that?” Bucky grins openly at Steve, who’s staring, agape, at the young man in the Captain America costume. If it can even be called a costume. Steve’s pretty sure his red boots don’t go up that high and there aren’t rainbow decals on his helmet.

The sequined stars pasted over his nipples probably lack any sort of defensive value, too.

“Nice costume, kid,” Bucky nods as they pass the group, whose numbers include a young woman in a red wig with a rhinestone-covered Widow corset, a built guy in green body paint with strategically-ripped purple pants, and a Tony Stark in dark sunglasses already holding a beer, wearing only a tie beneath a blazer.  
“We’re the Gayvengers,” a skinny kid dressed up in black booty shorts with a purple harness says, grinning. Steve’s pretty sure he’s meant to be Hawkeye, except he’s pretty sure Hawkeye carries a bow, not a marabou boa.  
“Well, be sure to party righteously, then,” Bucky says, trying to keep a straight face. 

They’re interrupted by a cry of, “You coulda waited for me, you assholes!” from the stoop of the house they’re crowded in front of, and it’s Steve’s turn to grin and try not to laugh at Bucky’s face when what can only be described as a Seductive Winter Soldier locks the door and takes the steps two at a time. When he’s caught up to his friends he takes the Captain America’s hand. “Never fear! The Wiener Soldier is here! So we can leave now.”

“Huh,” Bucky says, raising his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t blame you if you traded me in for a younger model.”  
“I’d never,” Steve frowns. Bucky snaps his suspenders again, mischief alight in his eyes, and bids the group of partygoers, “Have a good night, young’ns.”  
“What on earth,” Steve mutters, and it’s at that precise moment as Bucky turns and walks away that Tony’s experimental hologram covering his left arm fails, flickering in and out for a good ten or so seconds. The way he’s laughing his ass off, Steve knows for a fact there’s no way it’s an accident. 

The twentysomethings falls dead silent. They gape at the flash of the metal arm, then back at Steve, and you could hear a pin drop.

“Oh shit,” Captain Gaymerica says quietly, echoed by the Wiener Soldier’s louder moan of, “Oh, _shit_.”

Valiantly, Steve tries to put on his best Official Captain America face. “Well, you kids have fun and be safe tonight,” he says, in his best Official Captain America voice. 

He hears them attempt to muffle their screams as he jogs down the sidewalk to catch up to Buck.


End file.
